spinaljack 2017-04-26 19:50
Fun/frustrating game, actually took me a minute to realise I should wall jump off the green block. The comment about super meat boy tipped me off on that one. Can't get past the 2nd planet though.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Star-Crossed
By titomakanijr
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 209 | 3.66 | 20 | |
| Fun | 105 | 3.77 | 20 | |
| Innovation | 421 | 3.05 | 20 | |
| Theme | 462 | 3.27 | 20 | |
| Graphics | 218 | 3.94 | 20 | |
| Mood | 394 | 3.22 | 20 |
Fun/frustrating game, actually took me a minute to realise I should wall jump off the green block. The comment about super meat boy tipped me off on that one. Can't get past the 2nd planet though.
I like this kind of games ... yours is no exception. I really enjoyed playing your game, but it's too **HARD**. I would have liked to hear small sound effects and an offbeat music ... I really appreciate the graphic style and animations. Perhaps the controls could have been improved (RIP space bar), but they still work very well.
:soon: Very nice game! I will come back to vote...
:arrow_down::arrow_down:*my best score (after red planet)*:arrow_down::arrow_down: Cant.png
@spinalJack Thanks for taking the time to play my game! Maybe I should make my controls section a bit more robust. I play a lot of platformers so I am probably not the best judge of what a new player will know coming into it haha. I'm sure I will be saying this a lot but I had wanted the difficultly to be a slower curve as the player gets more used to the controls, but I ended up having to make the whole game shorter. Meaning it gets fairly hard pretty quick. Also I had never built real platforming levels before so it was just sort of a "Oh yeah this seems cool to do right here" sort of thing.
@fouralex As I said above I do apologize for the difficulty spike! I tend to think the Red planet is by far the hardest section. I even have troubles getting through it and I have played so many platformers... I guess I have always wanted to make a sort of hardcore platformer just like meat boy and Wings of Vi. Maybe a more casual jam (not calling you a casual btw) isn't really the place to do it though haha! Anyways thanks so much for taking the time to play the game! Also in your opinion how could the controls have been better? I think a lot of the values could have been tweaked a bit to make a tighter experience though.
I really enjoyed this game. It was a cool, innovative take on a platformer and it fit the theme very well.
The game is good but to much frustrating. I know it's supposed to be hard, but maybe the firs two or three levels should be easier.
Really challenging! Without audio it loses some points, but overall great entry!
Fun and challenging platformer. Took me a while to get off planet but once I figured out the mechanics it was fine.
It's tough, but it's a cool platformer, fit the theme great and I loved the graphics. The controls felt tight. I just wish there were some sounds :)
This was a fun game, though I definitely agree with the folks above that the difficulty curve is HUGE. I would love to play a version that ramps up in difficulty. Right now it's too painful to stick with, ha ha. The second planet should be reachable with easy so you feel accomplished, then get tougher and tougher the more you play. Anyway, good job overall regardless, and a very solid LD game! :)
Was fun to play, but I'll repeat, it's very hard, didn't end up making it too far. Nice work though.
I played (badly) on stream at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141469699 - time 0:28:00
Super cool graphics. It's maybe the one I've spent more time playing so far. A bit challenging though.
Fun! The difficulty ramps up way too fast though. Got stuck on the second planet. Good second showing!
Nice Idea! This game was quite a learning experince (a good one!) :)
At first I had to learn that I could double jump, but could not reach the first green block. Then I had to learn, I could walljump to get on top of it. :+1:
The controls feel precise and accurate, so that's a solid, working mechanic. I was really mind blown, when suddenly the gravity changed towards the other planet. All toghether: Nice game!
Hope you keep developing this. Certainly an interesting combination, but could use a bit more of a easing into it on the first few planets. Why not auto-checkpoint at each new ship though?
I made it about half-way past the third ship, but then wasn't sure where to go next... Gravity swap at reaching the 2nd planet was cool.
AMAZING GAME. I went in thinking I wasn't going to like it but it's very unique and the jumping and gravity mechanics are just incredibly satisfying. Love the difficulty too. I want this made into a full game!
- The lack of sound hurt the experience imho. The game could feel way more dynamic with a few sound effects. - having the player perform a precise double-jump + wall-jump + air control as a first challenge is a TERRIBLE first experience. The green platform is small and hard to reach when you are not used to the controls, and once you hit it, there is no way to know you can perform a wall-jump. The player is left with the impression that the jump is simply not possible. I suspect you lost quiet a few of your player there, and it will cost you a few bad ratings - the following challenges were way easier. - I never had to use the sprint button, and as far as I can tell, sprinting doesn't affect the jump behavior (although I admit I didn't finish the game, horizontal velocity might be required later on). As a rule of thumb, if you have a control that doesn't affect gameplay or a button that players will constently press (like a button to shoot in a shoot'em up), you should remove it.
I would say that the game has solid mechanics, but lacks polish and has a terrible difficulty curve
@daniel-conway Thank you for saying that I really appreciate it!
@eric-florio I agree with you completely. I think if I had to redo this game I would split it into levels which are much smaller with maybe one of two planets. For the most part I made the world in a very linear fashion, and as the deadline came closer I knew I couldn't really go back and balance it.
@nickzangus Thank you! Unfortunately I didn't have time to put in audio. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance everything as a solo. This time around day two I still hadn't gotten the core movement working so I sort of knew some things were going to be left out. I really wanted a few different sounds, especially for the boot thrusters!
@failedstarfish Thanks! After play testing a bit I should have added a sign pointing to the second planet... and for sure a mention of the wall jumping in my controls!
@sean-m Thank you for saying that! The feeling of the game was one of my main focuses. I spent hours and hour adjusting everything and fixing small issues I had with the movement. I suppose I'm saying that I really appreciate it!
@sheeptree I had wanted to do something like that, which is why the start has no enemies and is all just jumping around. Ideally the first few planets would have very minimal enemies, but I knew I had to condense the world somehow. I ended up going with a fairly hard middle and as I ran out of time the back end became much less populated with enemies. I suppose it was also my first time making platformer levels, and I didn't really think about how it is very hard to balance. I sort of am thinking about the path a player would take when i'm placing everything, so when it comes time for me to test it I already know what to do. It was almost like Super Mario Maker where I just wanted to make sure it was passable then moved on haha. Anyways Thank you!
@sgstair Thanks for playing it on your stream! I really love seeing other people playing my games, and I'm sure a lot of other devs feel the same exact way!
@maximo-peach Thank you! I was really happy with how the art turned out on this one. During the early stages I decided to go with the smaller pixel size. Made all the animations much easier to make, and overall I think it looks a lot "cuter" for lack of a better word.
@theslate Thank you so much! I am pretty happy with how this one turned out.
@laguna HAHA! That's really awesome to hear. Both of my games have been pretty similar in that they just sort of start without any messages about what to be doing in game. I'm really glad you found it fun rather than frustrating because I can totally understand either reaction. I think that was my favorite thing about this game. The general equation for gravity just happened to turn out feeling really great. I only wish it wouldn't drop off quite so fast when heading back out into space. Anyways thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
@mikeware I actually think this will most likely be the end of it. I will more than likely use the same type of circular movement in a different platforming project, but making a full game out of this would be incredibly taxing. I probably shouldn't go into some huge wall of text about this but essentially with this sort of circular movement every enemy and platform has to be placed, then rotated to match the planet it is linked to. This was all done in the code, but without knowing the rotation of an object before running the scene it was extremely hard to place anything else near it. Essentially this weird sort of design ended up adding a huge amount of time onto what normally should be a fairly quick process. Also! A lot of standard level design options were not available to me. I wanted a section where two parallel platforms would get further and further apart, having the player jump between them. I found out that the platforms might start close at the bottom but very quickly end up no where near each other. This could be solved with larger planets, but it really is just one nail out of many in this coffin. I have a feeling the level design would need a complete rework, but as of right now I have no clue how it would be done haha. Anyways thank you so much for your comment and for playing the game!
@calzep Thank you so much for saying that! I really am glad you had a good time playing the game!!! Also check out what I said to mikeware on why, unfortunately, I most likely will not continue with this project...!
@papypilgrim I totally agree with you, after I released the game I had one of my friends try it out while I watched. They don't play many platforming games and I watched them struggle for a while, and that was even with me explaining the controls in depth. I guess the real issue for me is that I grew up playing platformers, and when I was designing a lot of the level I was thinking of how I might play it. I always test for a double jump/wall-sliding where I can. I think it was just a complete lack of thinking about my audience. I really do appreciate the feedback! Also the sprint is there for added control over the character.